Until now, historians thought
that the ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate cats around
4000 years ago. But some evidence suggests cats were culturally
important outside Egypt long before that. Stone and clay figurines
of cats up to 10,000 years old have turned up in Syria, Turkey and
Israel. And archeologists have found 9000 to 9500-year-old cat
bones in Cyprus, which has no native feline species.

People were keeping cats as pets
almost 10,000 years ago, say researchers who stumbled on the grave of a
prehistoric tabby in Cyprus. The stone age cat lay close to the grave of
a human, possibly its master.

The cat belonged to the species Felis silvestris, the wild cat from which domestic cats are
descended. Its remains lie just 40 centimetres from a 9500-year-old
human grave. The proximity of the human skeleton suggests the person had
a stong bond with the cat, which might have been killed to go to the
afterlife with its master.

First
published in this format in Nova Irlanda Esperantisto No 62 2004